Star Trek Into Darkness: Cumberbatch’s Villain Revealed?

We’ll start this off by saying that the latest Star Trek Into Darkness is almost certainly not the official ‘Khan’ announcement fans have been hoping to hear. Expect denials from J.J. Abrams and everyone involved, but what looks to be a slip-up on Entertainment Weekly’s part is going to be giving online fans renewed conspiracies.

We’ve already reported the new images and Into Darkness cast images, as well as the cover images featuring either Kirk and Spock, or Kirk and ‘John Harrison.’ But the Cumberbatch/Pine cover is titled somewhat differently in EW’s back issue catalog: ‘Kirk and Khan.’

Such an announcement regarding Into Darkness’ much-bandied-about new villain won’t be coming thanks to a mistyped log-line, so it’s obvious this should be taken with a grain of salt – for now. But whether this reveal was intended or not, it’s not changing a simple fact: Khan is one of Star Trek‘s greatest villains.

So when your plan is to go big or go home (evidenced by the scale of destruction seen in Into Darkness’ Super Bowl trailer) it doesn’t make much sense to bring in some brand new villain nobody’s ever heard of. And if you do, naming him ‘John Harrison’ is even more unlikely.

Here’s the reveal/slip-up itself:

Since the EW website or article fails to mention Khan anywhere else, and reiterate that Abrams’ is still elusive about the villain Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing (among other things, apparently), this was obviously not intentional. Whether the fans wish to take that as an accident from someone who’s in the know, or a simple mistake from a blogger who thought ‘Kirk & Khan’ took up less space than ‘Kirk & Harrison,’ is going to be up to them. We know how fans are.